Reviews, gig announcements and interviews in Northern Ireland

INTERVIEW: The Late Twos

Local Belfast band The Late Twos performed a free, afternoon gig in HMV in the midst of one of Belfast’s busiest times of the year – the Tall Ships festival.

Gigging NI’s Kaity Hall caught up with Belfast band The Late Two’s after their free HMV gig this weekend. The five piece band formed in late 2010 and is comprised of Matty Legge on vocals, David McMaster on guitar/vocals, Ryan Costley on bass, Ryan Bennett on lead guitar and Dean Ward on percussion.

Thanks for agreeing to do the interview, it is lovely to meet you all. You are quite literally just after finishing your gig in HMV and how do you feel that it went?

Matty:“I think it went very well, there was a good turn out and a good atmosphere.”

Have you been doing some touring this past while?

David:“We actually haven’t, that was a good while ago. We took a stop to gather ourselves and then come back and do some.”

Matty:“Our last show was supporting Peace, a big UK band. Then after that we stopped to gather ourselves, got a new percussionist, Dean, and have been looking at different styles.”

David:“It’s us, Matty, David and Ryan that were the core of the band at the start and then the drummer and bass player changed a bit throughout the years. We just decided to get together and play some tunes. Had a go at writing some horrendous ones and then we got a good one and thought we were brilliant.”

Do you feel as a Northern Irish band with a definite underlying Punk sound that you are influenced by some of Belfast and Northern Ireland’s punk history such as Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones and Rudi etc?

Matty:“Yeah we definitely are. I think it was more after we started the band really that we realised all these different bands and got more interested in them. I think when we first started to be honest we were influenced more by Brit Pop than local music so it was more the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines and stuff, which does have a punk air to it. Then as we went on then we looked more at local bands and that’s maybe come out in our music a bit more.”

David:“Yeah, we’re like that type of music without the politics basically.”

How would you describe your sound overall?

Matty: “Punky, poppy, indie…”

Ryan B: (laughing) “Pindie”

Can I ask, do you have an album in the works at the moment?

Matty: “We don’t but we are actually just about to record a new single. We’re just going to take baby steps at it but hopefully eventually an album does happen. I mean we’ve got a lot of tunes now, we’ve got enough if we wanted to go and do an album but I don’t think we are ready yet for it.”

And finally, I really like your music videos! Have they all been shot in and around Belfast?

Matty: “Yes, by our own Ryan Costley! And we did one in Bangor, “Never Mind” was done in Bangor and “The Late Twos” was in East Belfast.

That was my favourite one.

David: “That video was just everyone turning up to a garage in East Belfast with as much drink as possible.”

Matty: “Yeah we put a massive post out saying everyone turn up at this place at this time and they were actually there before us. And then we just played music and filmed it.”

David: “We had half of East Belfast drunk before lunch time.”

Brilliant, do you have anything else that you would like to add?

Matty:“Just really about our gigs. We are supporting S Club 7 on the 22nd of August in Stranraer. So that’s what we are looking forward to.”